Instead of storing a single boolean into a byte block, why not store 8 booleans in that same block.
Example: 01010101 = 8 booleans, 1 3 5 7 = false, 2 4 6 8 = true.
Would this work?
is there a better way?
What are any pros and cons of doing this?
Would this have much of an impact on networking?
What you've described are often called bit fields; they're commonly used when space is at a premium (at the bits and bytes level) or you're really trying to shrink something. This includes (but is not limited to):
Otherwise, like most other problems in programming, you're better off using solutions that handle such low-level details for you, or keep your code as simple for humans as possible. Sometimes that means sticking with plain bools as it describes your code's intent. If your language and code base easily supports bit fields though, that's also fine. For completeness, C/C++ supports bit fields natively via this struct colon syntax:
struct Foo {
char f1 : 1;
char f2 : 1;
char f3 : 1;
// ...
};
... where the number after the colon represents how many bits that field uses. There's also vector<bool> but it's a problematic type that's seldom used these days, and it's clumsier too.
To answer your question more directly, unless you are working on a very-low-overhead network protocol, then it's highly unlikely that you'll need to work with bit fields. The space savings are minimal compared to the usual time scales in networking, and if you are really worried about it you are better off using an off-the-shelf solution like protocol buffers.